


happy ending

by YogSoThots



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Relationship, Canonical Character Death, Closeted Character, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read, Sad with a Happy Ending, Weirdly Specific Coping Fic, but a manage-it, honestly everyone fucking needs therapy, mace windu in therapy, non toxic masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19122751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogSoThots/pseuds/YogSoThots
Summary: death is the last unanswered question, the last great adventure, to finally become one with the Force and know everything--obi wan knew that's how he should think of it, anyway. but things never are that simple and some issues transcend time and space.





	happy ending

**Author's Note:**

> update: for now, the person decided to change their mind and do some hardcore distractions until they can live for themself. i'm really glad for that, but i'm also glad to have had the experience to know how to prepare if it ever does really happen. so it really does have a happy ending <3

looking up at the tatooine sky, obi wan was restless again. the fire crackled and popped and he poked at it with a stick. he looked around at the shadows and quickly averted his eyes from the disturbed sand a few feet from his hut.  
it didn't feel like he'd buried a man in the night.  
a holonovella played out in his mind--memories, ugly sad ones that he typically didn't think on except this late at night or if he'd been imbibing. he'd long since stopped crying for his former master but sometimes, no matter how well he thought he'd gotten those ancient feelings under control, they came up sharp and fresh and it was like a body blow. it was gonna be one of those nights.

 

it was the day of the funeral. jedi mandated counseling in certain scenarios and the loss of a master was most definitely one of them. mace insisted on doing this together--only a few people knew what was really going on and mace still needed it to stay that way. he also genuinely cared about obi-wan, not just his future with the order, but he /understood/. 

"it's okay to not live for yourself at first," mace said.  
he nodded and just kept staring off at nothing. he couldn't make himself be excited for knighthood considering the cost and people were...noticing. he felt weird without his braid swishing the back of his neck and kept reaching up to feel it, or the lack thereof. it was all happening so fast, as cliched as that sounded. 

"i know not many people understand this like we do," he started. "i mean..." he was playing with a Force-weight on his desk, idly spinning the square glass sculpture around without using his hands. he sighed and it drifted down onto the hardwood. he sighed again and closed his eyes. took some measured breaths just like he'd learned in therapy. it never felt like he was getting enough air and his mind was clouded, but mace still had a duty and frankly, qui-gon would have been exasperated that mace wasn't taking care of himself.  
mace hadn't seen qui-gon appear in the mist of the Force but he couldn't bring himself to tell obi-wan that.

"look," he tried again. "i loved him too."  
obi-wan didn't feel right not looking him in the face, it was too raw, too unrehearsed. this was real and not the mandated processing.  
"i mean, i do love him. i understand it's not the same. i do. and i know how hard it had to be to watch and not be able to stop it, you did your best, you did as well as anyone could have wanted, i know he was proud. but you couldn't stop it and i couldn't and that's just how this shit goes sometimes."  
they sat in silence. mace checked the big timepiece mounted on the wall near the doors.  
"like i said though, it's okay if it's not for you at first. it probably won't be. me? i'm still not ready to do it for me. but y'all? that was what qui-gon loved. i have to do this for y'all, and for him. we're about to go down there and perform the rites and it's gonna be hard and you and i have to do the best acting of our lives out there. we have to pretend like it's just war. but it's okay that it's not. i know we're busting our asses trying to prepare everyone for all what's coming and we're skipping a bunch of important shit in the process, but you and i are going to have this one before them out in the hall will. do you want to know what i really think of this?"  
obi-wan was silent but brought his eyes up.  
"never, ever let war become nothing but an abstract for you that you forget this feeling. every person on every battlefield has us or someone like us back home or right next to them. never, ever inflict this kind of pain on another living thing if you can help it. it's never just about the politics or the fucking fate of the galaxy, it always comes down to us individuals and what we will allow to happen around us."  
obi-wan swallowed a lump of pain and tried to quietly sniff, he didn't want to drip nosewater on his robes or let anything at all happen with his eyes, if he let them water, he'd completely lose his composure and be an embarrassment to the jedi.  
it happened anyway.  
instead of lecturing him on keeping cool and holding it in, mace stood from behind the desk and took the seat next to obi-wan and just listened. obi-wan's Force signature swirled in front of mace's eyes, a rain-wrapped storm that waxed into a downpour and tapered off into misty fog. he said all of it, all the things he saw and feared and asked the things. he wanted knighthood--but if this was how he reacted to loss, how could he be trusted to make those calls on the battlefield?  
it felt like purging himself of a poison, letting all of it loose like that.  
"qui-gon believed you were ready for this," mace said, handing him a box of sneeze papers.  
"i trust him. i voted for it, you know."  
obi-wan felt measurably better. it wasn't fine, but he could work with it. they spent the rest of the time discussing the knighting and what would happen next. it helped somewhat knowing he had a job, a duty to do as well. 

some time later, the door creaked softly.  
master yoda stood in the doorway and they knew it was time. 

later, at the knighting ceremony, obi-wan started to get what mace had said. how it didn't have to be for you at first. for him, it was this--he touched the hilt of his lightsaber, still sometimes secretly thrilled it was all real--he could do it. qui-gon died believing in him, and obi-wan felt the best way to honor his master was to lead by his example.

 

obi-wan no longer questioned this--he'd made peace many years ago with what had happened after that. with his own padawan. with everything the war destroyed, and this new war was going to wreck. there always was another fucking one of them on. he steeled himself and forced himself to look and feel the sharp, nauseating ache in his chest and stomach--the staff sticking up uneasily from the sand, probably not going to hold now that he thought of it. it was such a silly little pragmatic thing to think, so fucking obi, he thought, and managed a weak chuckle at his own joke through what he realized was going to be a long, ugly cry. he hadn't had one in a good long while.  
when it was done, he washed his face, taking extra care with his beard. even at this age he still oiled it. maul used to rip on him for it most unmerciful. he was too exhausted to go through it all again, so when the suns crept up, he had a short, uneasy nap.  
he slept without dreams and was thankful for it.

the next day, he straightened the staff and hefted his bag over his shoulder. he pulled his cloak in to shield himself from the sand whipping up into a little dirt devil, and started off across the dunes to see a boy about a droid. it wasn't for himself, but he could still do it. 

**Author's Note:**

> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/ exists if you ever at all need it, they have text, chat, and call as well as deaf and hard of hearing options
> 
> i'm not okay but i will be. i'm safe at the time of this writing--i have perspective on Events and i have decided it's not my time. i firmly believe every human being has the right to decided when theirs is--but please don't be hasty, things that feel enormous sometimes need more time to work through. i marked this Teen on purpose--if this is you, find someone you trust and talk this over with them. it's vital to know as many perspectives as you can before deciding anything, ok?  
> always make sure important life and death decisions are things you have considered carefully from as many angles as possible to ensure you've made the best decision for yourself.
> 
> take care of yourselves. if you're reading this, i may not know you, but i love you. as a trans guy living in america, sometimes we don't hear that enough as people, i know. but i mean it--you matter. you're taking time out of your life to share this experience with me and i appreciate you. i hope this can help, even if it's just a distraction for a while.
> 
> i'm going to go have as normal of a life as i can. i'm going to spit in the eye of my oppressors. i'm going to keep being soft and caring and hardened, but passionate. i'm sad now, but it will pass. it's impossible to truly go through life not having touched at least one person and if this is a thing that touches you, i'm glad i could share that with you.


End file.
